Coming Soon …

Dictated by the 5 of 9 Chrysler board members (appointed by the US and Canadian governments) and the UAW board member, Chrysler is pleased to present the 2010 Obamamobile:

Coming to a politically correct dealership near you soon!

Note the standard dual teleprompters. Since this model is run by hot air and not much else, all you have to do to boost power is read the prepared statements on the ‘prompter and zoom, you’re off to the races!

2) The thing runs on wind power. While this means that there is no real fuel for the mobile, the driver is such a windbag that this might compensate for the lack of energy sources.

3) Gas, if used, costs $200 a gallon. While gas actually costs $2.00 a gallon, under the plan for the car you pay far more than it is worth while getting so little for your money.

4) You have no idea where you are going. You make sure every 2 miles to stop and conduct a poll amongst yourselves and other drivers to see where you might want to go, but in the end the popularity of the driver, if it stays over 50%, makes everyone else’s arguments meaningless.

5) The first 100 days of ownership are the most important. However, after that, no one really cares.

6) You need to see after four years of owning this piece of crap if you want it for four more. Kick the tires, see how much it has cost you, and realize that when other people see you with it you become the focus of major embarrassment. Maybe you can trade it in for a far better model. In 2010, at least, there is a chance that some of the people in the back seat who have been urging this lump of garbage along will be tossed out onto the freeway for people who don’t want to spend tons of money just to make themselves feel better.

I think people get to fixated on the union aspect. They screwed the bondholders in favor of funding the union VEBA. That’s a worthwile topic.

But control went to FIAT. We gifted FIAT Chrysler’s [few] assets and screwed everyone else with the obligations. And the owner of FIAT prettymuch telegraphed everything that was going to happen a few days before it did. On Obama’s resume, among community activist, he is also a Chicago Politician.

I’ve never seen a car review that reads like something out of The Onion…

So here goes. It’s terrible. Biblically terrible. Possibly the worst new car money can buy. It’s the first car I’ve ever considered crashing into a tree, on purpose, so I didn’t have to drive it any more. The biggest problem, and it’s taken me a while to work this out, because all the other problems are so vast and so cancerous, is the gearbox. For reasons known only to itself, Honda has fitted the Insight with something called constantly variable transmission (CVT). It doesn’t work. Put your foot down in a normal car and the revs climb in tandem with the speed. In a CVT car, the revs spool up quickly and then the speed rises to match them. It feels like the clutch is slipping. It feels horrid. And the sound is worse. The Honda’s petrol engine is a much-shaved, built-for-economy, low-friction 1.3 that, at full chat, makes a noise worse than someone else’s crying baby on an airliner. It’s worse than the sound of your parachute failing to open. Really, to get an idea of how awful it is, you’d have to sit a dog on a ham slicer.